THE BOHEMIAN STRONGHOLD

The black guy spread his arms wide, the gesture taking in an abandoned subway station in front of us. Pride rang in his voice as he boomed: "Welcome – to the Heartbreak Hotel!"

Only then did I realize that we were not alone anymore.

People in strange, individualistic clothes surrounded us, still more coming out of the entrance of the – obviously not abandoned – station. Gazza, being the slightly naïve fool that he is, started towards them, but I saw the suspicion in their eyes and tugged at his sleeve, making him back away with me. He was excited – new people seemed to do that to him – and pointed at the crazy, multi-coloured hairdo of one of the group.

I figured that these people had to be the resistance.

The Bohemians.

"Who're these two, Brit?" A male voice asked, and as the owner of that voice came forth, I couldn't help but point and stare.

I mean, once you see a guy in a skirt you really think you've seen it all.

Obviously, that assumption had been wrong, for the man standing before us now did not only wear a rather ripped up leather ensemble, decorated with all sort of symbols foreign to me, but his long, combed-back blond mane framed eyes with running black makeup (it looked like he had cried black tears) and his lips, which were pressed into a thin line of disdain, were coloured with dark brownish lipstick.

The Black guy – Brit, it seemed – straightened out Gazza's jacket, while proudly explaining that he found who they had been waiting for.

Mr Black Tears cocked a sceptical eyebrow. "The Dreamer?" Drawing a deep breath that clearly stated that he was ruling his temper (Blimey, such a drama queen!) he explained, slowly as if talking to a child: "Just because he has a leather jacket does not make him The Wild One!" Blondie took a step back, made as if to say something, making Brit shush her, thus neglecting to say something about Drama Queen's statement, which the guy took as an invite to proceed talking. "He looks like a clone from the zone to me!"

Well, that guy obviously had not been near Boy-zone for a while, because I did and had never seen anyone looking like Gazza – the ink-black hair, light skin-tone (Zone-Clones mostly preferred a tan and lighter shades of hair), not to talk about his clothes.

Brit tried to convince him by telling them what Gazza called himself. I still resented the name, and even more so as it made everything worse. Before, the Bohemians had been wary. Now, Drama Queen came to the same conclusion Brit and Blondie had before – "He has seen the Texts, he's a spy," that kind of yapping.

"Which is what I said!" Gee, thank you, Blondie! Just what we needed – not! Because Drama Queen, with Blondie's reassurance of his suspicions, ordered the now livid resistance group to kill Gazza.

Things became a frenzy. I tried to push Gazza out of the way of the Crowd that screamed bloody murder, but he just grabbed my arm and dragged me away, using his body as a shield between me and the mob. Which was cute, but, once again, pretty pointless as I was not the one in danger here.

What saved him in the end was Brit, who exclaimed that "anyone who wants to kill the dude has to come past me!" and stood in all his (despite the skirt) intimidating burliness between his friends and us. Accidentally placing his hand on the very strange pointy breast of the golden top of a strange guy with black and white hair. Which he seemed to mind as much as if he had been a girl. Geez, will wonders never cease... Gazza once again gave me a once-over to see if I was alright (they haven't been anywhere near us, so why wouldn't I be?) Brit seemed a bit pissed off now. "He hasn't seen the texts! How could he? We guard them with our lives!" Blondie chimed in then "He says he dreams the words!" Her tone of voice made it obvious what she thought of the idea. It seemed she had only taken us along to indulge Brit. Lovely. Brit's voice shook me out of my venomous thoughts: "He calls the chick 'Scaramouche'!"

Now wait just a second, there.

"What is this 'chick'-business?" Suddenly everything was quiet as the Bohemians stared at me a little shocked. I glared them down. "Do I have feathers?" I mock-clucked along, "Do I lay eggs?" And Gazza, I'll beat you up if just then you actually checked if I did.

Finally, Drama Queen gathered enough of his wits to address me. "Oi! Ch..." I glared at him "Lady! We believe there was a time that when a cool dude wished to refer to his red-hot mama" Excuse me, MAMA? "he would use the term 'chick'! It's a mark of respect!" I felt a headache coming up, and started to wave away to show that I would let it slide when he continued "Second only to 'bitch'!"

I let my arm sink to stare at him a bit incredulous.

I mean, seriously?

'Bitch' as a mark of respect, of all things?

"Something tells me you got that wrong!"Which made a few people snicker; only serving in making Drama Queen quite embarrassed and thereby irritated.

"Yeah, well, we're getting off the point, alright!" Way to change topic! "The point is this dude, he's a spy!"

I had started to walk back to where Gazza had been standing, but as it was now his turn to be offended, I turned around again to back him up with a few fierce glares at anyone trying to get near. I had never seen Gazza so annoyed. Frightened, exhilarated, yes, but not this outraged. "Well, look, I-I-I don't know what you're talking about, alright? I-I didn't ask to be brought here!" Well, no, but you didn't exactly fight it, either! The thought crossed my mind or a while, but then I remembered that I was one of only two of his allies right now and focused again on the glaring. "I-I don't know who you people are, o-or anything about your stupid texts!"

I groaned. He was such an airhead! We wanted these people to not kill him, if possible, and this so didn't help! I turned to him as the bohemians advanced on us with outraged cries, and we fought a brief tug-of-war over who would protect whom, as Brit's powerful Baritone cut through the din, stopping both the Bohemians and us. "He just knows the stuff! It's in his head!"

Gazza let go of me, trailing his fingers along my arms as he did, and I stayed close to him. Just to make sure I would be able to rush in if anything happened

Or so I told myself over the tingles.

As if realizing that he had made a mistake, Gazza hesitantly tried to make good again by inquiring, hesitantly, what the 'Texts' were.

Drama Queen shot him one more contemplating look before answering. (I swear I could see his mane deflate as he lowered his hackles.) His voice was much calmer now, and somewhat sullen. "Fragments. Nothing more. Stuff that we and the other Bohemians across the Global shopping precinct have found." There were more? Nice.

The girl with the somewhat conical, multicoloured hairdo Gazza had pointed at earlier chimed in then. "We have scraps of stuff. Magazines –"

Now I was curious. I had never heard that word before, and I hate not to know something. I left Gazza to ask Conic Head: "What's that? Magazines?"

Once again Drama Queen seemed somewhat surprised by my interjection, but it seemed questioning about their Texts was the thing to do if you wanted to endear yourself to them. I could see a glint of eagerness in Drama Queen's eyes as he explained. "Eh, they're kinda like websites. But they're made of paper. You can touch them." I was fascinated. I only once had seen paper, or held it, and I had loved the texture. And there must have been a lot of paper if these magazines held the information of a whole website! But it seemed this was only one of the many wonders the Bohemians had found, for Drama Queen continued. "And Posters. Which are weird, static commercials stuck to walls." He drew himself up to stand a little straighter, and pride shone through at his next words. "We take our names from these clues from the Age of Rock."

Conic Head smiled at us. She seemed warm, kind. Motherly, somehow. Or at least how I think a mother should be like. "I'm Aretha" she introduced herself. I liked her name.

"The Name's Paul McCartney." Drama Queen seemed a bit miffed that Aretha had stolen his place of first in line and shouted his introduction a little louder than he probably intended, for he looked a little bashful as he continued, in a much softer voice "They, uh, call me Big Macca."

Blondie was next. "I'm Meat. Meat Loaf." And her name was indeed a funny one.

"I'm Madonna", a very painted, somewhat hyper girl called across the place, standing on her tippy-toes and waving in an attempt to be seen.

"They call me PRINCE!" the man with the strange golden corset exclaimed, strutting over to me, until I almost stood face to breast with him and made a weird bowing motion, a mischievous glint in his eyes. I tried to back away a bit (seriously, personal space, people?) when a nasal voice behind me startled me and saved me from bumping into the - man that had suddenly popped up behind me. "I'm Cliff Richard", he said waving polished nails in a very girlish fashion as I turned to see him, his lips with a painted black heart covering the middle stretched into a kind smile. I hardly had time to smile an unsure smile back at him when a surly voice stated that the owner was "Charlotte Friggin' Church", who obviously had a thing for skin-tight leather-or-something-overalls with a lot of holes in them.

A man appeared behind her. Where the other Bohemians were very much at ease, he held himself with pride and elegance, despite his blond Rastas being swept up in a hairstyle that very much resembled a palm tree, or his glittering coat and golden lipstick. He proclaimed that he was "Bob. Bob the Poet, Bob the Rebel, Bob the Prophet – I am Bob the Builder!" Well, I don't quite get how being a Builder had anything at all to do with being all of the other stuff – especially the part with the prophet made me wonder – but I was too busy, really, taking everything in, to do anything but stare at the ragtag motley crew around me. Prince and Cliff Richards seemed to have taken quite the shine to me, since they hardly gave me space to move while they chattered away. Well, Prince chattered, Cliff Richards was seemingly more interested in my clothes and hair. Geez, if I have ever seen anything gay, it's Cliff! But it wass so strange a sensation not to be met with disdain that I actually started to enjoy myself.

A quick glance at Gazza told me that he was beyond exhilarated now. He grinned so widely that I am sure his face was going to split in half any second, and he jerked around trying to take everything in. Then his eyes fall back onto the guy that brought us here. "So who are you?"

Geez, Gazza, don't you ever listen?

But his question stirred the group. Everyone went quiet, Cliff even stopped fiddling with my hair, and there was a slight feeling of – anticipation? Something like that – in the air. Brit held all attention as he proudly exclaimed that he was "the biggest, baddest, meanest, nastiest, ugliest, most raging, rapping, rock'n'roll, sick, punk, heavy metal psycho bastard that ever got get-down funky!"

A most impressive accumulation of words that made no sense whatsoever, indeed. Especially when connected with this guy, who, for all his fearsome bulkiness, so far had been almost the epitome of niceness.

He paused for effect.

"They call me - Britney Spears!"

Wasn't Britney a rather female sounding name?

But all the Bohemians cheered. They seemed to like whoever Brit got his name from, as well as the guy himself. And hey, if he liked it, who am I to complain? I was shaken from my thoughts as Cliff nudged me towards the platform, which was mostly occupied by females. I shot a quick look back at Gazza, but Cliff reassured me that now there would be no more danger for us from any of them. We were one of them now, or so he said. The thought made me smile.

I belonged.

And maybe it was the smile, but the girls, with Blondie – Meat Loaf – in their middle like a queen seemed to take a shine to me as instantly as Cliff and Prince had. I met the twins AC and DC, a very heavily pierced girl called Iron Maiden, the very candy-coloured Pink Floyd (though her clothes were rather – dare I say it? – cool, despite their colour) and so on and so forth. I barely registered Gazza and Big Macca talk, lost in leather skirts and chain necklaces and such things more. Finally I blurted out: "Where did you get all this great stuff? You look fantastic!"

Meat, who had sauntered over to the door to the station – the Heartbreak Hotel – answered, her face smug. "We find it! We're scavengers!" And then she shocked me, as she got an excited glimmer in her eyes.

Uh-oh...

"Fancy a makeover?" A what? Oh, nonononon... "You're a Bohemian now!"

"Well..." if you put it like that...

She obviously wouldn't take 'no' for an answer as she plunged into suggestions right away, giving me a once-over while she fired them at me.

"How about some tight jeans?"

Her abruptness made me answer without thinking.

"Oh, I hate my bum" I was mortified – I mean, I did hate my bum, but to blurt it out like that...

Meat didn't miss a beat, next idea already in line.

"A short skirt?"

Now I was feeling protective of myself as well as embarrassed. And well, since I started anyway...

"Hate my legs"

"A Crop top?"

Still feeling self-conscious, I decided to just get this over with.

"Hate my stomach, hate my hips. I quite like my arms –"

Another Idea sparked, and Meat tried to interrupt, but I continued: "But not my hands!"

That got her thinking for a minute, then a grin spread over her face as she teased "So you need something that accentuates your elbows!" Which was met by roaring laughter all around, a fact that made me realize only now that everyone had been listening. Gazza, who sat on a tin barrel, seemed somewhat sad, whereas Big Macca was livid.

"Girls! Please! I am talking to The Man here!"

Drama Queen.

And since when did he hold Gazza in such high regards?

Meat scoffed good-naturedly. "Makes a big difference from talking out your bum then, eh?" Again the Bohemians exploded with laughter while Drama Queen spluttered with indignation. The blonde turned back to me, shoving me towards a door that a guy with a wild black mane and a black stripe across the bridge of his nose opened. "Go on, Hen, I've got loads of stuff back there, just have a laugh!"

"Oh, but you lot is having the laugh," I tried to protest, but she simply shoved me in and the door closed behind me.

I looked around, hearing, muffled by the door, Big Macca telling Gazza something about some king named 'Pelvis' (okay, point one: I would kill my parents for naming me that if I were him, point two: really, Macca, do you have to fill his head with even more stuff?) and stared.

Not a single scrap of pastel plastic anywhere to be seen.

I was in paradise.

I stood in a hallway, the walls clustered with what I took to be posters –colourful big papers with pictures and names on them. There was a map of Planet mall pinned to the wall, with a few pins stuck in it here and there (maybe these were other rebel bases, Brit had talked of others), one of them pinned into place over what used to be a city called Ashford, down in the Southeast of what once was called The United Kingdom. There was a small piece of cloth tied pinned to it, too, bearing the words "Heartbreak Hotel". Content to know where I was, I turned and skimmed over the walls, taking in the solideness of the place. I even found a poster showing a big, winged creature perched on a skyscraper being assaulted by a motorcycle (yeah, it made no sense at all) with the words "Meat Loaf" printed atop in bold red capital letters. It stuck to a door which I took to be – well, Meat Loaf's room. But I also found a door slightly ajar that sported the sign "clothes". Which I thought about for a while until I finally came to the conclusion that, since such clothes were are, they belonged to no-one and they mixed and matched. Plus, they needed clothes to dress newcomers – unless every rebel they found were as resourceful as Gazza and me (I still wondered how Gazza got his clothes) they would have to deal with Gaga-clothes otherwise.

Just the thought made me shiver.

I slowly opened the door to find piles and rows of clothes scattered around the room. I looked through them, finding a lacy top that would nicely accentuate my arms, but was – as was the nature of lace – very see-through, so I rummaged for something to wear over it. Most tops were rather skimpy.

And then I saw it.

A corset in dark red and black lace. It was longer that the one Meat wore, but then, she had a glorious body, one which the short bodice she wore showcased nicely, while this one would cover my hips and stomach, shaping them a little, too. It was a little more low-cut than I would have liked, but I loved it.

Sadly, it seemed impossible to find a long skirt anywhere in the mix. So I picked the longest I could find that matched the corset - red leather and chains – and picked some leather bracelets to hide my wrists. Like that my hands actually were not that bad... I also found a leather collar with a ring hanging down the front. I turned to leave the room when I saw some leather bootees the same colour as my skirt.

I looked down at my trusty, heavy army boots.

They were really, really sturdy and I went through hell to get them.

But they were also pretty heavy, and running around in them too long was also hell.

Plus, who would I need to defend my toes against, now that I was gone from Gaga-land?

Right.

I pulled off my army boots and stuffed my slightly aching feet into the wonderfully soft bootees and left the chamber. It still felt like leaving behind an old companion, but the lightness of feet was pure bliss. Across the 'clothes' room were two doors that sported a plaque, one with a woman, one with a man, and I felt slightly relieved. I had needed to pee.

Plus, as I found out, the bathroom was also the place where the girls stocked the make-up. A quick look in the mirror showed me that I needed to re-do it, anyway, so I quickly washed myself and re-applied shadow and eye-liner before braving myself to step out.

As I reached the door to the outside I heard Meat sing.

Nothing like anything I ever heard.

It was soft, slow, sad.

Loathe to interrupt by appearing, I slowly slid down, back to the door, and leaned my head against it just to listen.

She sang of someone lost, and how to cope with it. That life goes on. Wondering what how the one lost would do in your stead. And from then, as the Bohemians slowly joined in, the song, though still soft and slow, became more confident, hopeful. Instead of mourning the loss, it celebrated the life of him.

The last verses caught my attention, and seeped into my mind.

And now the party must be over
I guess we'll never understand
The sense of your leaving
Was it the way it was planned?

And so we grace another table
And raise our glasses one more time
There's a face at the window
And I ain't never, never saying goodbye

One by one
Only the good die young
They're only flying too close to the sun

Crying for nothing
Crying for no one
No one but you...

The silence that followed the last lingering note was deafening, until, of course, Big Macca broke it.

Who else?

"Let's not get heavy about it, Aye?"

It wasn't until he said that that I realized that I had tears running down my cheeks. Quickly I wiped them away – the fact that I was not yet sniffling proof that I had not cried long, short enough to leave no evidence once I wiped them. Outside, Big Macca continued. "It's not what the rock gods would have wanted!"

Gazza seemed to read my thoughts, for once.

"H-How do you know?"

If the following short silence was anything to go by, Macca had not expected to be asked that.

But then he answered anyway, and I decided to step in before he fed Gazza anymore nonsense.

Instinct, my ass!

I opened the door and stepped out.

At first I wanted to modify the scenes at the Heartbreak Hotel into several days that they spend there, to get to know the Bohemians (and each other) better and to learn more about music and the like, but then I realized that with the chips and the conversations they have that that would make no sense. At all. So I went with it the way it was. I only will have to figure out how to get them something to eat, or Scaramouche will never stop being grumpy...

Okay, I changed something. I needed Scaramouche to know where they are so that she can figure out how to get to the Seven Seas later on. There has to be some logic, after all. So here's the improved version.

For all who care: Not mine.